Eastman School of Music - Frederick Fennell Memorial

Wind Ensemble Conducting Masterclass 2019

The Conductors Guild is proud to offer an exciting Wind Ensemble Conducting Workshop with the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. Now in its eighth year, the Frederick Fennell Memorial Masterclass continues to honor the legacy of Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble (EWE). This Conductor Training Workshop provides participants with the experience of conducting wind ensemble literature under the guidance of eminent Eastman faculty members Donald Hunsberger and Mark Scatterday. Twelve active participants will receive over 50 minutes of podium time with the Eastman Wind Ensemble and Eastman Harmonie. Ten active participants will receive 20 minutes of podium time with the Eastman Wind Orchestra (EWO

The goal of the Conductors Guild Training Workshops is to provide the maximum amount of specific and insightful guidance on both technical and musical matters to each attendee in a constructive, encouraging, and non-competitive environment

Congratulations on being selected to participate in the 2019 Conductors Guild - Eastman School of Music Wind Ensemble Conductor Workshop.  Please select the following link to complete your workshop tuition paymet.  If you have any questions, please contact the Conductors Guild office:  [email protected]

USE THIS LINK FOR WORKSHOP TUITION PAYMENT FORM.

Application Fee:  $85

Tuition Fees:  

Conductors Guild Member Participant:  $800      Non-Member = $850

Conductors Guild Member Auditor: $475     Non-Member = $500

APPLY NOW! 

If you are not a current member of the Conductors Guild, you may join via a Conductors Guild application online, here

Repertoire:

Hindemith: Symphony in Bb

Schwantner: In evening’s stillness

Grainger: Molly on the Shore, Colonial Sing, Shepard’s Hey

Dana Wilson: Dance of the New World

Arnold: Four Scottish Dances

Beethoven: Octet

Mozart: Serenade in C minor

 

Proposed Schedule:

Friday, Nov. 1, 2019

Noon - registration

1:45pm - 5:25pm - EWO and EWE dress rehearsals

7:30pm -  EWO and EWE concert 

Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019 - ROOMEEW 415

 

9:00am - 11:30am - Sessions with EWO

Lunch with the conductors

1:00pm - 3:30pm  - Sessions with Harmonie

4:00 - 6:00pm - Sessions with EWE

8:00pm -  Attend Rochester Phiilharmonic concert - optional

Sunday, Nov. 3, 2019 - Room EEW 415

9:00am - Noon - Sessions with EWE and Harmonie

 

Faculty:

Donald Hunsberger

Donald Hunsberger is conductor emeritus of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, having served as its music director from 1965 to 2002. He also holds the title professor emeritus of conducting and ensembles at Eastman, where he served for many years as chair of the conducting and ensembles department.

Under his leadership, the Eastman Wind Ensemble continued its development as an international performance model in the creation of numerous new works for the wind band, providing a prime example of contemporary performance techniques as demonstrated on numerous recordings on Sony Classics, CBS Masterworks, Mercury Records, DGG Records, Philips, and Decca among others. In 1987 his scores and recording of Carnaval featuring Wynton Marsalis with the Eastman Wind Ensemble were nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Solo Performance with Orchestra category. His most recent recording project with the EWE is a three-CD set (The Eastman Wind Ensemble at 50-DHWL 001CD-WBP) celebrating its 50th anniversary. Under Hunsberger’s direction the EWE performed on six tours of Japan and Taiwan between 1990 and 2000, and one throughout Japan and Southeast Asia in 1978 for the Kambara Agency and the U.S. State Department.

In addition to performing over 100 premiere performances, Hunsberger had been involved in writing projects including the books The Wind Ensemble and Its Repertoire (Warner Bros. Pub.), The Art of Conducting (with Roy Ernst, Random House), The Emory Remington Warmup Studies (Accura Music), and numerous articles published in educational journals. He has been recognized in publications for his innovative scoring techniques for varying instrumentations of the contemporary wind band. His research into the history and development of scoring for wind bands in America has led to numerous articles in WindWorks, a journal for wind conductors, performers and composers.

He has been the recipient of a number of awards for research (Homespun America: The National Association for State and Local Historians), pedagogy (the Eastman Alumni Teaching Award and Herbert Eisenhart Award; Wiley Housewright Fellow, Florida State University), and performance (the Crystal Award from the Asahi Broadcasting Company, Osaka, Japan; the Ehud Eziel Award, Jerusalem, Israel).

He is a past president of the College Band Directors National Association and has served as a member of the boards of CBDNA, the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, and the Conductor’s Guild.

In the orchestral world Hunsberger has created and conducted performances of orchestral accompaniments to over 18 silent films with 50 orchestras including the National, San Francisco, Houston, Vancouver, Utah, Virginia, San Diego, Syracuse and North Carolina Symphony Orchestras, and the Rochester, Buffalo, and Calgary Philharmonic Orchestras among others.

 

Mark Davis Scatterday

Mark Davis Scatterday is professor of conducting and chair of the Conducting and Ensembles Department at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. As only the fourth conductor of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, Scatterday joined a prestigious line of conductors – Donald Hunsberger, Clyde Roller, and Frederick Fennell – in the past 65 years of the famed ensemble. Since his appointment, he has led the EWE on tour to Japan, Taiwan, and China and conducted the EWE in highly acclaimed performances at Carnegie Hall, Canadian National Musicfest, and the Midwest Clinic. He has recorded five new CDs with the EWE, Eastman Virtuosi, and  Eastman Music Nova and led the Eastman Harmonie on a highly acclaimed tour of Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic.

Having received a doctor of musical arts in conducting at the Eastman School of Music, Scatterday has directed wind ensembles and orchestras throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Previous to his appointment at Eastman, he was professor and chair of the Department of Music at Cornell University. Scatterday maintains an active guest conducting schedule as well as researching and writing articles involving score analysis, performance practices, and conducting. 

Scatterday has conducted the premiere recording of Roberto Sierra’s Cancionero Sefardi with members of the Milwaukee Symphony (2001), Judith Weir’s Consolations of Scholarship with Ensemble X (2005), Danzante with James Thompson and the EWE (2006), Barcelonazo with Musica Nova (nominated for a 2008 Latin Grammy), and Manhattan Music with the EWE and the Canadian Brass (2008, nominated for a 2009 JUNO). In 2012, he recorded with the EWE and the Eastman Virtuosi featuring Stravinsky’s music and celebrating the EWE’s 60th year (2013, AVIE, London) and most recently released a new live recording of Roberto Sierra’s music with the EWE (Summit, 2017).

The Eastman Wind Ensemble is America’s leading wind ensemble. Its core of about 50 performers includes undergraduate and graduate students of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.

Frederick Fennell first formulated the general concept of the wind ensemble at Eastman more than 50 years ago. Under his leadership the group became known as the pioneering force in the symphonic wind band movement in the United States and abroad. A. Clyde Roller served as conductor between 1962 and 1964, continuing the tradition established by Fennell. Donald Hunsberger became conductor in 1965 and led the ensemble for 37 years to international prominence. The ensemble’s current director, Mark Davis Scatterday, was introduced as the fourth conductor of this prestigious group during the EWE’s 50th anniversary celebration on February 8, 2002.

Ever since its founding, the EWE has been in the forefront elevating the wind repertory through recordings. Fennell’s Mercury Recording albums of the 1950s and early ’60s are notable for their pioneering use of binaural, stereo, and 35mm recording techniques. These “Living Presence” recordings focused on standard band literature by the most respected classical composers — heard for the first time in the newly balanced instrumentation. They also centered on major repertory not found on traditional band programs, such as Hindemith’s Symphony in B-flat, Schoenberg’s Theme and Variations, op. 43a, and Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments.

Under Hunsberger, the EWE continued its progressive stance in recording techniques with participation in quadraphonic and digital recording on the Deutsche Grammophon, Phillips, CBS Masterworks (now Sony Classical), Toshiba EMI, Tioch (now KEF), Vox, Centaur, and Desto labels. The album Carnaval, a collaboration with Wynton Marsalis, was nominated for a Grammy award in 1987 and reintroduced the public to an entire tradition of cornet showpieces for band. Other Sony Classical releases have featured new transcriptions of Bach organ works by Hunsberger, as well as contemporary works. One of the featured pieces on the Live from Osaka album was Joseph Schwantner’s … and the mountains rising nowhere, a work that has become representative of the ensemble’s approach to new music, adventurous tone colors, and innovative compositional techniques. Since its founding, the ensemble has premiered more than 150 new works.

In 1968 the group traveled cross-country, giving a series of concerts that culminated in a performance for the General Session of the MENC (National Association for Music Education) conference in Seattle. The ensemble made subsequent MENC appearances in 1987 and 1996. In 1976, the EWE performed at the College Band Directors National Association National Convention, and in 1978 embarked on a tour of Japan and Southeast Asia. In addition, the release of the 1987 Carnaval disc was followed by a tour with Marsalis to Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, and New York.

 

The Eastman Wind Ensemble

The Eastman Wind Ensemble celebrated its 50th anniversary in February 2002 with a conference of international scope on the wind ensemble and its music. The conference included the premiere of a new work from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bernard Rands. The anniversary also coincided with the release of a multi-CD set of recordings compiled by Warner Brothers from sessions in Japan and Rochester over the last several years.

Between 1990 and 2004, the EWE has embarked on seven summer tours of Japan. These trips have been sponsored by Eastman Kodak and Sony Music Foundation, and have focused on demonstrating Eastman performance techniques and showcasing original works of the repertory. Several of Hunsberger’s Wind Library publications originated as pieces specifically transcribed for these tours, as each tour also featured special arrangements by Hunsberger and Scatterday to display the capabilities of the Ensemble.

The most recent Japan tour in 2004 began a new era for the EWE under the direction of Mark Scatterday and included several performances in Taiwan and China. This Asian tour featured trumpet soloist, James Thompson, as the ensemble recorded concertos by Dana Wilson, Eric Ewazen and Jacques Hetu (Danzante, released on Summit Records in 2006). Also in 2005, Scatterday and the ensemble performed at Carnegie Hall as part of CBDNA’s National Conference on February 26th, featuring music by Karel Husa, Roberto Sierra, David Maslanka and Jeff Tyzik. The ensemble’s latest recording entitled Manhattan Music with the Canadian Brass was released in 2008 on Opening Day Records with ArchivMusic and recently a live recording of Roberto Sierra’s music (Summit, 2016). A new recording of Jeff Tyzik’s music, Images, is scheduled to be released in October of 2018.